


Snow and Spruce Forest

by dr_zook



Category: Bandom, Darkthrone (Band), Until the Light Takes Us (2008)
Genre: Black Metal, Corpse Paint, Friendship/Love, Inspired by Music, Inspired by Real Events, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Pining, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, pre-slash if you want to read it that way, transilvanian hunger, wimping out on confessing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-08
Updated: 2019-02-08
Packaged: 2019-10-21 15:36:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17645552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dr_zook/pseuds/dr_zook
Summary: murder only takes a momentit'll last you forever[DARKTHRONE,Fucked up and ready to die, 2003]





	Snow and Spruce Forest

**Author's Note:**

  * For [liriaen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/liriaen/gifts).



> Happy Birthday, love! ♥
> 
> I must say I have strong feelings about the Aarseth-Vikernes-thing I'm generally glad to elaborate on, but I wanted to write you something nice and pretty, so there you go! :D 
> 
> (Also, there's a nsfw outtake, because I guessed you're not so keen on that.)
> 
> The title is, of course, the translation of _Snø og granskog_ , a poem by Tarjei Vesaas, sung/spoken by Fenriz on the _Panzerfaust_ album.

After that bellowing scream amidst the fucking woods Gylve grows stiff, eyes wide and not blinking. The candelabra is tumbling into the snow, and has he also stopped breathing? Great.  
  
Alarmed, Ted puts the camera down and rushes towards him, chanting silently, "Idiot, idiot, idiot." His mate is as fucking cold as the steady supply of beer cans he keeps outside his kitchen window.  
  
He grips his shoulders, tight. Shakes his skinny ass. No reaction. Ted starts slapping him, and the third hit thankfully elicits a shaky moan. Ted rolls his eyes. "Come on," he urges the fucker, shaking him harder. Probably leaving deep finger imprints in Gylve's skin.  
  
Gylve's eyes flicker with something not unlike life, and he maybe even focuses on him. "Ungh," he drawls. "Wanna give me a concussion, asshole?" He wipes Ted away, crouching to the side. His bare ribcage is heaving labored.  
  
"Well, fuck you," Ted rasps. "Don't scare me like that."  
  
"Mother hen." His corpse paint looks bizarre with that lopsided smirk.  
  
Ted stares at him, and eventually kicks his shins. "Remind me of not caring next time," and throws Gylve's old sweater at his head.  
  
Gylve slowly pushes his thin arms through the sleeves. Arms that are too long, and, most of all, too thin for a drummer. Just like his stick legs.  
  
A cough behind him: Ivar. Looking at them with squinted eyes and a frown. Fuck, Ted thinks. He's so very fucked.

 

* * *

  
  
"Pretty good, eh," Gylve mouths around his cigarette, his Jailbait James Dean Slouch by approximately 76%.  
  
Ted blows into his freezing fists, humming in agreement, and then fizzes open a beer.  
  
Ivar draws something disgusting up his throat and spits it between their feet. Together with the lack of his usual bitching this means about as much as Ted's noise. "Yeah, but, dude, here are no chicks. Rein your fucking hips," he bellows, throws his cigarette butt down and steps over it as he returns inside.  
  
Ted and Gylve stare at him leaving, then at each other.  
  
"Asshole?" Gylve mutters, and actually rearranges his posture. "What was that?"  
  
Ted shrugs, "Dunno." He takes a sip from his can.  
  
"What does he mean with _rein your hips_?" Gylve pats down his trousers, then up again, eventually hooking thumbs into pockets. "What's wrong with them?"  
  
"They were canted, I guess."  
  
"They were WHAT?" Exasperation blows Gylve's eyes wide.  
  
Ted cants his hips like Gylve before. "Like this?"  
  
"No fucking way. That's super homo, man."  
  
"Is it?" Ted does it again and takes a drag from his cigarette.  
  
Gylve sputters loose tobacco from his lips, "I'm not standing like this." Ted grins. "Tell me I don't, please."  
  
"Sorry."  
  
"Oh God. With chicks around?"  
  
Ted takes his time thinking about it.  
  
"But why doesn't it work, for fuck's sake?"  
  
Ted steps towards him. "It doesn't?"  
  
"Nah," Gylve says. "They steer clear of me."  
  
And when Ted murmurs, "Good," with his chin tilted in defiance Gylve's gaze freezes over. "What--" he starts, but Dag slides around the door of the basement, saying, "Are you coming or what?"

 

* * *

  
  
It's fucking dark and fucking cold, Holiday season. The whole village is in festive spirits, but a bleak thing has been nesting in Ted's guts since summer.  
  
He retrieves his mails from the post office like every Monday afternoon. One envelope is rather heavy, the 'T's of Ted's name and address are little inverted crosses: from Gylve. He snorts and tries to feel what's inside without opening. A tape, probably. An accusation, maybe. Because Ted had stayed away from Oslo, from that godforsaken hellhole. Even before things had just exploded there.  
  
And Gylve had been right in the middle, alone. Without any anchor, any haven or sanctuary.  
  
A freezing hand closes around his neck and he rips open the package. It's indeed a tape, and a hand-scrawled note stuck to it. Around it two pages written on a typewriter.  
  
_This could be our new Darkthrone album,_ the note says. _Give me a call and tell me what you think. Lyrics are done by myself and, well, Varg. I asked him if he wanted to. I hope you will sing them regardless? Don't be a stranger, man._ Inverted crosses all the way.  
  
Elation swamps him, knees even going a bit weak: Gylve's alive. The vague prospect of him, somehow, not being a part of Ted's small universe anymore had filled him with numbing horror, for just those few moments.  
  
Ted never feels, or _has_ felt for that matter, the same with other musicians: this overwhelming, gut-pummeling wave of _fuck this is it_ that almost floors you when the riffs just fit, the basting leaves you both weakened yet full of strength, and the vocals, being just another instrument, really, connecting everything. Connect him with the others.  
  
And with Gylve, of course.  
  
He takes a deep breath, wipes across his eyes, and gets home. Nobody's around, so without any preamble he puts the tape, neatly named _Transilvanian Hunger_ , in the recorder, and presses Play.  
  
A few seconds in, and it's already worse than he had feared: a gaping maw closes over him without warning, shakes him down to the core, spits him out, and screams: _You left me. You left me. You fucking left me._  
  
Yet it sounds like the echo of the things he was doing in this middle of nowhere. Of the atmosphere of what he has been grappling with for the last two years.  
  
Before the tape's done he staggers to the bathroom to throw up.

 

* * *

  
  
The click of a lighter lures Ted's stare from the road in front of them towards his passenger. Gylve takes a deep drag, his eyes flutter momentarily shut. His knees fall further apart.  
  
Ted grabs the steering wheel tighter, his breathing is becoming slow and audible.  
  
"What," Gylve drawls.  
  
"I thought you quit."  
  
"Yeah," he snickers. "Funny, that's what I thought as well."  
  
"Whatever," Ted says. "Not in my car."  
  
"It's not your car, but your neighbours' ratty Volvo coffin."  
  
The road is winding along, the passing trees look bored with leaves starting to lose color.  
  
"Exactly," Ted declares.  
  
Smoke glides from Gylve's mouth and is drawn back through his nostrils. He pulls out the ashtray, which is overflowing with old butts, and pointedly flicks ash from his cigarette on top.  
  
Ted's teeth are grinding together. He forces his foot to be steady on the speeding pedal instead of pushing down.  
  
It has been spring, once, when he had visited Gylve in hospital. The blackbirds outside were truly busy. Gylve's lung had broken down, the doctors just shaking their heads. One of them had wordlessly shoved a package of _snus_ towards him.  
  
"What about your lung?" Ted asks now.  
  
Gylve props his right foot against the glove compartment. "It's not like I'm planning to die 90 years old wheezing in my rocking-chair, man." His other leg twitches a mean and fast beat, a knobby knee poking through the frayed hole.  
  
Ted takes a quick look in the rear mirror, the road behind is clear. He pulls abruptly to the right, the brakes, in fact, screech like in an American movie with cars _way_ faster.  
  
"Jesus Christ!" Gylve is skidding across the dashboard. "What the fuck?!"  
  
Eventually Ted looks at him, then his hand very slowly draws near Gylve's face. His friend's eyes widen, but he doesn't shy away when Ted fumbles across his lips to pluck the cigarette from the corner. The lips are dry and chapped, but warm, and maybe it feels like the idea of a kiss.  
  
Ted winds down his window and throws the offensive thing outside on the damp asphalt. It's a fucking statement, that's what it is.  
  
The tiny wheels working inside Gylve's brain are almost audible. "You," he starts, then clears his throat. "You could have told me." He stares at the windscreen wipers.  
  
_That I'm worried about you?_ Ted winds up the window and takes a deep breath. _That I don't want you to die, ever?_ "Now you know," he mumbles.  
  
"'m sorry, man." Gylve fiddles with the sodden cuffs of his sweater. "That I worried you."  
  
_That I have wondered if your skeins stayed behind your ears if I tucked them there very gently? And would you let me?_  
  
Ted grips the wheel tighter, again. Maybe it wasn't his best idea to drive down to Oslo and get Gylve's scrawny ass away from those depressing concrete shoals-- to depressing spruce forest, well, that's _so much_ better. Proper black metal, even. He sighs.  
  
"It's all Vikernes' fault," tumbles from his mouth.  
  
Gylve goes rigid beside him. "What?"  
  
It's difficult terrain, he knows. Some things will never be not raw and unscarred. They stay ever close, too close, and not in a good way.  
  
"He was jealous of Aarseth," Ted says. "Of what he was building up with that crass store. Of the kids he attracted." He remembers young Gylve leaning behind Aarseth's counter, blathering with the others about stuff that made Ted's eye roll. Inventorying the elitist choice of records displayed there, or preening with every clasp of Aarseth's approving hands on his shoulder.  
  
Ted shudders.  
  
"What?" Gylve croaks. It's not a topic he likes being talked about, almost ten years having passed or not.  
  
"He wanted to… save you, I guess."  
  
It's always profoundly disturbing Ted whenever words fail Gylve. It's not like he has been his usual chatty self since Ted had arrived after three and a half hours driving. He didn't even had to explain to his neighbours why he needed their car. Ole had just said, "No problem. You fixed our light last month, remember?" And dropped the keys in Ted's palm.  
  
Gylve snorts now without humor. "That's ridiculous."  
  
"You have another explanation?"  
  
"I have nothing, man," Gylve just says, and rather forcefully pushes open his door. "I'm taking a leak."  
  
Ted watches him leave the car to disappear behind the nearest bushes. He also steps out and stretches a few times. Walks around the car to lean against it there, waiting.  
  
Gylve returns, not looking grim anymore, but serious. He wields the Polaroid camera he had brought with him, and without warning takes a picture of Ted.  
  
"Oi," he says. "What's that supposed to mean?"  
  
Gylve shrugs, avoids looking directly at him, and shakes the picture the machine spit out. "Need a fresh one."  
  
Ted squints. "What the fuck for?" A _fresh_ one?  
  
"For the one wall in my living room. I tape pictures there."  
  
"Didn't know that," Ted tries, unsure how to proceed. Because Gylve has hung up pictures of him at home.  
  
"The pictures are reminders of nice things, you know?" Gylve holds still now, and stares at the developing colors. "So I wouldn't think about crap, but something good." He steps closer, and Ted plucks the print out of his grasp.  
  
"Dude," he says, looking at his irritated, grouchy self. "That's appalling. I don't want you to take the noose, because of _that_. Take a better one."  
  
There, the usual slight grin is back. "Sure," Gylve says, and raises the camera again. "Give it to me," he mock-croons.  
  
Ted rolls his eyes, but tries to look friendlier when the camera rattles.    
  
"Hey," Gylve says as he shakes the paper. "Can I ask you something?"  
  
"Sure," although he shouldn't have said that so quick. But it's true.  
  
Gylve puts his stuff back into the car, shuts the door close and leans beside Ted. His hands grabble for his pack of smokes, but Ted reaches over and draws them away, like he would with a child.  
  
An indignant huff, but Gylve smiles. "You know, I have my own theories about the things that happened. Or are still happening. But some pieces of the puzzle don't exactly fit when I try. Maybe they are still missing."  
  
Now it's Ted who fumbles for his cigarettes, but Gylve is quick, stepping in front of him and holding his wrists. "Don't be a bad example, now," he says, and takes the pack. Shakes out one smoke and puts it into his mouth.  
  
Ted takes a defiant stance, like daring him to light it. He feels a bit childish, but he's used to that by now.  
  
"I know you're not fond of people, mankind in general," Gylve begins. "It explains why you moved away, quite far away from home, if I may add. It's clear you were fed up me, that you despised the _Helvete_ scene, and everything, everybody it attracted. Yet I wonder why you are still putting up with me." He flicks some of his waterfall hair behind his back, daring them both to look at each other, proper. "I mean, I had been such a dickhead, even afterwards."  
  
"You know why," Ted says silently. Gylve has been on the brink of everything for so long, he can't bring himself to lie into his face. "I need you." It sounds tacky, but it's the truth. He swallows.  
  
A grin, crooked eye-tooth and all, splits Gylve's face almost in half. "You too, man? That's good to hear, you know." He steps closer, way too close, in fact, until his forehead connects with Ted's.  
  
"What--" Ted tries, but it's too late.  
  
Gylve picks the smoke from his mouth, and says, "Thank you," very silently, and kisses Ted's cheek, unhurried and chaste.  
  
Ted then allows himself to take a hold of his friend, and draws him into a real hug, with chins on shoulders. "Sure," he mutters, and because Gylve's soft hair tickles his nose he puts it behind one of his ears.  
  
After a few heartbeats Gylve peels away and reaches for the second print. "Heh," he says. "Not so bad." He holds it up, so Ted can see.  
  
He looks at himself, his ruffled mop of hair being almost shoulder-long again. The irked fondness hovering around him is on the verge of blooming into something else, it's clearly, undeniably visible. He looks up and the quirk of Gylve's mouth tells him: he knows, too.

**Author's Note:**

> # Main source was the Darkthrone interview for the _Decibel_ magazine; you can read it up in _Mudrian, Albert (ed.): Precious metal: Decibel magazine presents the oral histories of 25 extreme metal essentials. Philadelphia, 2009._ It's the story of _Transilvanian Hunger_ , which is devastating in itself if you dare to think about it.
> 
> # Another source was an interview for [a Norwegian magazine](http://www.nattogdag.no/2016/10/fenriz-darkthrone-raymond-hauger/), where Fenriz talks, among other things, about how he battled with depression during the late 90s. (I want to live on Fenriz' porch in summer and get buzzed squinting into the sun, man.)
> 
> # Everything else is fictional. I do not claim to know about mentioned people's life in the way depicted.


End file.
